From left, Carol Webster, Cynthia Romanowski, Bethany Webb of Huntington Beach have been key members of the HB Huddle political activist group that grew out of the 2017 Women’s March. (Photo by Joshua Henry)

Bethany Webb speaks to the first HB Huddle gathering at the stage in Huntington Beach Central Park near the Central Library. From the first gathering of 81 people the group has grown to more than 350. (Photo courtesy of Annamarie Ferree)

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Community members gather at the first HB Huddle meeting in February 2016, three weeks after the historic Women’s March. (Photo courtesy of Annamarie Ferree)

Participation in HB Huddle has helped inspire Shayna Lathus to run for Huntington Beach City Council in Nov. 2018. (Photo courtesy of Cynthia Romanowski)

HB Huddle’s logo describes its mission.

From left, Carol Webster, Cynthia Romanowski, Bethany Webb of Huntington Beach have been key members of the HB Huddle political activist group that has grown out of the 2017 Women’s March in Jan. 2017 to about 400 members. (Photo by Joshua Henry)

In February, 2017, 81 people, many of whom had never met, came together at the Central Library in Huntington Beach. It was a cool and cloudy day, three weeks after the historic Women’s March which had drawn anywhere from 3 million to 5 million participants to more than 400 simultaneous marches.

Those in attendance in Huntington Beach ranged from the merely curious to those seeking to advance one of the credos of organizers who said: First we marched now we huddle.

Just like that, as organizers had hoped, a march became a movement.

Nearly a year later, as preparations are finalized for the second Women’s March on Saturday, Jan. 20, HB Huddle is standing proud and walking tall. The group formed on that February day has grown to more than 350. Along the way it has spawned advocates, launched candidates, stirred debate and continued to march.

On Saturday, at least 110 members of HB Huddle, in two packed buses, plan to participate for the first time as a group in this year’s march in Santa Ana. And they insist this is just the beginning.

“I view this as a long game,” said Cathey Ryder, a founding member and leader of the local elections team. “It won’t just change in 2018 or 2020.”

In its short existence, HB Huddle has galvanized the local progressive community with a laundry list of endeavors, which they call actions, from five teams it has organized.

Huddle has hosted a number of well-attended candidate forums and Q&As, including a sold-out debate between four leading Democratic candidates for California’s 48th Congressional District and the seat held by Republican Dana Rohrabacher.

It has posted more than 100 clips from its events on YouTube, become active in the immigrant community and raised money and promoted progressive causes and issues.

It has even inspired at least one member to enter the political fray for the first time,

Teacher Shayna Lathus had walked and had her hair shaved for cancer research, but that had been about the extent of her social involvement. She was one of the merely curious at the first HB Huddle meeting. Now, quite unexpectedly, Lathus finds herself as a candidate for City Council in Huntington Beach.

As she describes it, people kept asking her, “Why don’t you run for office?”

One day, while picking up her son from track practice, she was describing the latest request.

Not long after that the family sat down to talk, and by the time they were done, she was a candidate.

In some ways Lathus is a microcosm of the group. She had been peripherally involved in politics and considered herself an informed voter, but the day after the 2016 presidential election, things changed. Being aware and voting weren’t going to be enough for Lathus.

A middle school teacher in Santa Ana, Lathus said she looked into the eyes of her students and “my heart broke for the children who were terrified their parents would be taken from them.”

With HB Huddle, Lathus gravitated to the No Ban — No Wall group. The next thing she knew, she was one of the facilitators of the group and helping to organize sponsorship of a soccer league in the Oak View community, buying soccer balls for the kids and involving herself in other issues.

Bethany Webb’s introduction to politics came via personal tragedy, after her sister, Laura Webb Elody, was killed and her mother, Hattie Stretz, was wounded in the Salon Meritage mass shooting in 2011.

Although Webb says while the election of Trump was not nearly as personally devastating, she sees parallels in her response and “the way our family maintained our humanity and didn’t succumb to the hate.”

When Cynthia Romanowski posted an HB Huddle announcement online and booked a room at the Central Library, she set out 40 chairs and waited to see if anyone would show. A crowd of 81 came out to the Feb. 11 gathering and the group was off and running. That same week, according to the Sister March Network, more than 4,500 groups huddled nationally.

According to Romanowski, although other resistance groups formed around the same time, “we wanted to do more than march and protest. We are concerned with long-term community engagement, which goes beyond politics.”

Despite the admittedly progressive leanings of most of the group, its leaders insist it is non-partisan and encourages members who designate themselves as No Party Preference to join.

“We are left leaning but we focus on issues over party, so we are different from local Democratic clubs,” Romanowski wrote. As proof, Huddle notes it has hosted Libertarian and Independent candidates running for congress in addition to Democratic hopefuls.

Ryder, who attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., last year, said her goal is to “create a vibrant community of informed voters.”

Many members of the group say they have been amazed at the level of support they have received and the number of like-minded people they have met.

“HB has always been conservative,” Lathus said. “It’s a relief to know I’m not alone.”

“I have met thousands like me,” said Webb, “people just living our lives and raising our families. We just rose together to say, ‘This is not OK.'”

Greg Mellen is a freelancer and veteran award-winning reporter with more than 30 years experience at papers in California and Missouri. He previously wrote for the Orange County Register and Long Beach Register. He received his master's degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and was a faculty member and sports editor at the Columbia Missourian. In his free time he likes to read and dabble in fiction writing, which he tries to keep out of the newspaper.

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